AT THE DEDICATION 
OF THE MARKET STREET ENTRANCE 
TO THE CITY OF HARRISBURG, PA. 



APRIL TWENTIETH 



v' T?T1 



I )Rpn ANE 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/proceedingsatdedOOcivi 



PROCEEDINGS AT THE DEDICATION 
OF THE MARKET STREET ENTRANCE 
TO THE CITY OF HARRISBURG, PA. 



QZfyt gift of tfje famtlp of tfje 
late Colonel ^tnvp ^cCormtcfe 



HELD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE CIVIC CLUB OF 
HARRISBURG, APRIL 20, I906, AT 4 O'CLOCK P. M. 



Witi) tfje compliments! of tfje family of 
tfje late ^enrp ^cCormicfe 






Jl&ount Pleasant Prefix 

J. Horace McFarland Company 
Harrisburg-. Pa. 



Gift 



^^^c^/YY\J^<^^ /Y^utfVYvueA. 



PROCEEDINGS AT THE DEDICATION 
OF THE MARKET STREET ENTRANCE 
TO THE CITY OF HARRISBURG, PA. 

ON the afternoon of Friday, April 20, 1906, the re- 
cently completed entrance to the City of Harrisburg, 
at the west end of Market street and the east end 
of the Harrisburg Bridge, was formally dedicated under the 
auspices of The Civic Club of Harrisburg. The sky was 
overcast, but no rain fell. 

Between the two ornamental electroliers at the end of 
the bridge, a platform, suitably decorated, had been erected, 
upon which were seated the Honorable Lyman D. Gilbert, 
who presided for the Civic Club ; the Honorable Edward Z. 
Gross, Mayor of Harrisburg; Mr. Christian Nauss, Presi- 
dent of Select Council; Mr. Edwin C. Thompson, President 
of Common Council; Henry B. McCormick, Esquire; the 
Right Reverend Doctor Darlington, the Reverend Doctor 
DeWitt, the Reverend Doctor Chambers; Mrs. Lyman D. 
Gilbert, President, and Miss Rachel Pollock, Mrs. Robert 
A. Lamberton, and Mrs. William Henderson, Vice-Presi- 
dents, of the Civic Club ; Mr. Charles A. Disbrow, Presi- 
dent, Messrs. John T. Brady, Joseph P. Luce, and J. 
Horace McFarland, members, V. Grant Forrer, Secretary, 
and Warren H. Manning, Landscape Architect, of the 
Harrisburg Park Commission; Mr. Albert Kelsey, of 
Philadelphia, who designed the entrance, and Mr. Elias Z. 
Wallower. 

The Honorable Samuel W. Pennypacker, Governor of 
the Commonwealth, not being able to be present owing to 
a previous engagement out of the city, designated as his 

7 



t^roceetungs at ttje Saturation of tfje Market Street 

representative General Thomas J. Stewart, Adjutant Gen- 
eral of Pennsylvania. 

In front of the platform were arranged park benches, 
extending back to Front street, where members of the 
family of Colonel McCormick, members of the Civic Club 
and of the Historical Society of Dauphin County, Pennsyl- 
vania, and others, were seated. 

About the southern column were grouped several hun- 
dred children from the public schools, members of the 
League of Good Citizenship, each having a small flag. 
The Steelton Band assisted with the music. 

The programme was as follows: — 




The Civic Club of Harrisburg 

J^ebtcatton of tfje Market Street 

Entrance to tfje Cttp of 

i|arrt£tmrg, Pa. 

April 20, 1906, 4 o'clock p. m. 



<Cfje gift of tfte familp of tfje late Colonel Cfenrp /UStCormtcfe 




TABLET ON NORTH COLUMN 

Programme 

The Honorable Lyman D. Gilbert presiding for the Civic Club 

^tngtng: "^tar ^pangleb banner" 

League of Good Citizenship (Harrisburg Public Schools) 

Praper 

The Reverend George S. Chambers, D.D. 

Presentation 

Henry B. McCormick, Esquire 



Acceptance for tfje Cttp 

The Honorable Edward Z. Gross 
Mayor of Harrisburg 





SMLBiiiw-, h,„ ,n miKw i;i;.Ki mm *». 



TABLET ON SOUTH COLUMN 



Acceptance as; Part of tfje Park ^pstem 

Mi. J. Horace McFarland 
Representing the Harrisburg Park Commission 



Hlobress 

The Reverend Professor John DeWitt, D.D., LL.D. 
Princeton Theological Seminary 



Ringing: "America " 

League of Good Citizenship 
(All are requested to join in singing) 



2£enebiction 

The Right Reverend James Henry Darlington, Ph.D.,D.D. ,LL.D. 
Bishop of Harrisburg 



America 

My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrims' pride, 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring. 

My native country ! thee, 
Land of the noble free, 

Thy name I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills, 
My heart with rapture thrills 

Like that above. 

Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees, 

Sweet freedom's song; 
Let mortal tongues awake, 
Let all that breathe partake, 
Let rocks their silence break, — 

The sound prolong. 

Our fathers' God, to Thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To Thee we sing ; 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light, — 
Protect us by Thy might, 

Great God, our King ! 

— SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH, l8?l 



Entrance to tfje Cttp of i|arrt£fturg, Pennsiplbama 



Shortly after four o'clock, Mr. Gilbert addressed the 
assemblage as follows: — 

Fellow Citizens : It is part of the history of Harrisburg, and greatly to 
its honor, that eight years ago The Civic Club of Harrisburg was formed to 
help to beautify the city, to add to its healthfulness and to the happiness of 
those who dwell in it ; and that this civic movement, thus begun, was so thor- 
oughly justified by the many labors in many wise ways of its members, that 
it has won public support, and the creed of the Club has become the creed of 
the city. 

The event which we now celebrate could not have happened a dozen 
years ago, because it would not then have been encouraged or completely 
understood. It is, therefore, an added illustration and reward of an awak- 
ened public spirit which has, in recent times, advanced the standing of this 
city among the cities of the nation. 

This occasion has a distinction which it shares with no other. The audi- 
ence is composed, in large part, of the scholars of our public schools, who, 
through the early and untiring efforts of the Civic Club, became members of 
the League of Good Citizenship, learning and observing the duties of citi- 
zenship, upon which the welfare of this city must always depend. It is a 
great happiness and a good omen to find so many of them interested and 
taking part in this ceremony, because they understand its spirit and its 
object. 

The gift which the city is to receive is said to be the only formal city 
entrance in this country, and its beauty is plain to your view. It is com- 
posed, in part, of two columns, which were used in the old Capitol building, 
and were first secured by Mr. E. Z. Wallower, before they were removed 
to a distant place. 

There is a singular fitness in the design that the entrance to the Capital 
City of Pennsylvania should be between the columns which so long sup- 
ported the Capitol of the Commonwealth. It blends in historic suggestion 
and association this city of the State and the State itself. 

The place selected for the entrance to this city is one of happiest choice. 
The river is the ancient highway of Harrisburg. Moving water has always 
been a lure to the feet of the wanderer and the settler, and to follow it is an 
instinct as old as the history of the human race. Captain John Smith, in 
1608, was tempted into its lower waters, and was the first white man who 
saw them. And since that time it has been a highway for the Indian warrior, 

13 



t^roceebingg at tfje Peotcatton of tfje Market street 

the missionary, the voyager, the trader, the trapper, the soldier, the emi- 
grant and the settler. It came before the days of the trail and the road, of 
the canal and the railway, and will outlast them all. Without it, Harrisburg 
would not have been ; and the formal entrance to this city stands at the 
historic entrance on the banks of our immortal river. 

This gift has another purpose. It is to commemorate the name of Colonel 
Henry McCormick, that fine flower of fine citizenship, and is a noble monu- 
ment to a noble man. Let us hope that in the after time this celebration may 
have many successors, each as unselfish in sentiment and purpose, as excel- 
lent in history and omen, as this one, which, at the honored bidding of The 
Civic Club of Harrisburg, has just been opened. 

"The Star Spangled Banner" was sung by the children 
under the direction of Professor Edward G. Rose, after 
which prayer was offered by the Reverend George S. Cham- 
bers, D.D., Pastor of the Pine Street Presbyterian Church, 
concluding with the Lord's Prayer, in which all joined. 

Henry B. McCormick, Esquire, made the presentation 
as follows: — 

Mr. Chairman, Your Honor, Mayor Gross, and Fellow Citizens : It 
gives me pleasure to present, on behalf of the family of the late Henry McCor- 
mick, this Market Street Entrance of the city of Harrisburg. We realize that 
it has necessitated the removal of two old landmarks — the old toll-house and 
the old tree, both being objects of interest and even of affection to many. 
We believe that the new improvement is more in harmony with the improve- 
ments in this city, and we trust will, in its time, become a landmark, and, 
with its columns and bronze tablets perpetuating the memory of the old 
Capitol and bridge, will be of interest and give pleasure to thousands who 
will visit the river front park in years to come. 

The Entrance was formally accepted on behalf of the City 
by His Honor, Mayor Gross, as follows: — 

Standing at the entrance to this bridge today, I am taken back in memory 
to boyhood days, when this and the old market-houses on Market Square were 
the rendezvous for the boys of this neighborhood, and virtually for the boys 
of the town, when the same boys knew every niche between the stones of the 
abutment of the bridge as well as its third pier, and by that way almost every 
boy avoided paying toll ; when the second bank, as it was then known, was the 
popular playground for boys and girls, and Front street between Mulberry 
and Market streets was occupied by places of business, and there was a 
raftsmen's warehouse at the corner of Front and Paxton streets. 

All the streets were dirt streets. The residence limit was bounded by 
Paxton street, the Pennsylvania canal and North street, and the old reservoir 

14 




THE DEDICATION, APRIL 20, 1906 



proceeding* at tfjc l^ebtcatton of tije jfl&arfeet Street 

was in the country. In due time came Camp Curtin and the soldiers, and a 
growth of town in that direction, as well as Government stables across the 
canal, along Chestnut street. 

And houses and the town have come along gradually until the dirt streets, 
with the additional use, became worn; a sort of macadam was resorted to, 



r :~w~\ 




THE ENTRANCE TO THE OLD BRIDGE AND THE OLD TOLL-HOUSE 

which, however, soon wore out and constant mending was needed, which 
was indeed not a success. Then with increased population, the old sanitary 
regulations became inadequate and inefficient, and, in fact, entirely unsani- 
tary ; our water supply became contaminated, our playgrounds and parks were 
nothing, and in fact our town was a word for strangers throughout the State 
and this, the Capital City of the greatest State in the Union ! 

We lay dormant for a considerable time ; then the Civic Club was organ- 
ized, before which, however, enterprising business men on Market street saw 

16 



Entrance to tfje Cttp of ilfarrtsrtmrg, Pennsplbama 

the necessity of street paving, and, after many trials and tribulations, Market 
street was paved. With the experience of paved Market street came the 
spirit of improvement, and the Civic Club and the Municipal League, and the 
indomitable zeal and faithful work in the cultivation of civic pride and love 
of sanitary and cleanly surroundings of these two organizations. 

With a body of Councilmen in hearty accord with the movement, and the 
courage and fidelity of my worthy predecessor, Mayor Vance C. McCormick, 
we have a City Beautiful — twenty-one miles of paved streets and twenty 
more in prospect — beautiful parks to be made more attractive by enlargement 
and attention ; water equal to any on the face of the earth and better than 
most of it ; sanitary regulations, which in the near future we predict will equal 
those of any city in the State, and by the action of our State Legislature, 
approved by the Governor, a State House as beautiful in proportions and 
as elegant in finish as any in this broad land, and representing more value for 
money expended than any other in existence, and to this I believe I may add 
the enlarged park or Capitol Park extension, which I feel sure must come. 

Here we have a City Beautiful, brought about primarily by the genius, 
energy and loyalty of the Civic Club, furthered by the influences of the 
Municipal League, all represented by one who stands as one of the donors 
of the magnificent gift to the city today. The head of the estate contributing 
this gift needed no other monument than the Harrisburg Hospital, standing 
yonder, as the result of his munificence and best thought for alleviating suffer- 
ing humanity. True, he was only one of the donors ; but his liberality and 
sympathy were what made enlargement and greater work possible while his 
life lasted ; and his name in the business interests of this community will be 
a lasting memory. 

Today, in the same spirit and voicing the same sentiments, and in 
thorough accord with the movement for all that is beautiful and noble and 
good, the family of Henry McCormick have donated this magnificent gate- 
way to our city, and it is with thorough appreciation and sincere thanks to 
the donors and to the Civic Club, in whose hands the matter of these cere- 
monies was arranged, that in the name of the City of Harrisburg I accept the 
gift; and now, with the sense of this added responsibility, it is fitting that it 
should be placed in the hands of the proper department for care and 
keeping; and to you, Mr. McFarland, of the Park Commissioners, as the 
representative of the Commission, I formally hand the gift for safe keeping. 

In concluding his remarks, the Mayor turned to Mr. J. 
Horace McFarland, on his left, who as a member of the 
Harrisburg Park Commission, and on its behalf, accepted 
the entrance as part of the Park System, as follows: — 

17 



Proceedings at tfje j^ebication of tfje Market street 

Mr. Chairman, Mr. McCormick, Ladies of the Civic Club, Mayor Gross : 
In a full sense of the dignity of the trust thus imposed upon it, the Harris- 
burg Park Commission formally accepts the duty of caring for this notable 
erection. 

Thus memorably placed, it stands not only as the first formal entrance to 
any American city, but as a fair jewel that appropriately clasps together a 
green ribbon of trees and grass, gracing the beautiful river front which is 
our choicest possession. 

A modern apostle of outdoor art has said, " Beauty is a mantle that will 
eventually clothe our cities." It is fitting and trebly significant, that this, the 
first ornamental architectural possession to come to Harrisburg, should not 
only be beautiful in itself, but should set the seal of municipal beauty upon 
a pleasant park, present also a permanent historical landmark, and stand as 
a stately evidence of the public spirit of certain of its citizens. 

I venture to assume that this assemblage, on this auspicious occasion, 
marks not only the dedication of this entrance, but witnesses the christening 
ceremony of a new city — a city once seemingly hideous and careless beyond 
hope, but which today here resolves to deserve for its harmonious architec- 
ture and public elegance the name of Beautiful Harrisburg, to which its for- 
tunate situation has long entitled it. 

Sure it is that these historic columns, nobly placed, and given in a fine 
spirit of civic devotion, set a high standard of municipal beauty, toward 
which we cannot but earnestly strive. 

No more can we in honor neglect grace of outline and dignity of form in 
bridge or building, fountain or subway, after this splendid entrance shall 
have drawn upon us the eyes of all America ! No more can the specious plea 
of false economy condone the continuance of that most uneconomic ugliness 
which degrades a city and its citizens ! For a city hall, for a union station, 
for a public library, for all municipal and semi-public structures, this stately 
entrance binds us to such considerate and harmoniously grouped beauty as 
shall eventually surround Pennsylvania's new and superb Capitol with an 
appropriate setting. 

Harrisburg, with all its present progressiveness, has many needs, but 
surely none more imperative than that its people should soon come to move 
daily among public structures equal to this in elegance and dignity. Standing 
thus at the gateway of the new city, where the magnificent Susquehanna 
spreads its glorious panorama of water, island and distant mountain, these 
columns are but a promise of that harmonious beauty which must, if we are 
true citizens, soon clothe our favored city. 

The Harrisburg Park Commission, in accepting this splendid gift in trust, 
does so with the earnest hope that other citizens, as truly patriotic, may be 

18 



Entrance to tfje Cttj> of Cfarrtfitfiurg, Penngplbama 

moved to as fittingly increase the city's adornments. Our developing parks 
need memorial entrances. Beautiful and appropriate fountains may be erected 
as enduring monuments to public-spirited liberality. A great public bath 
would do incalculable good, as well as cause honorable remembrance of its 
donor. 

May we have many such occasions as this, to the honor and glory of our 
city! May each of us justly claim, as did St. Paul, to be "a citizen of no 
mean city ! " May we soon live, in all respects, in Harrisburg the Beautiful ! 

The Chairman then introduced the Reverend John DeWitt, 
D.D , LL.D., a former resident of Harrisburg, and now 
Archibald Alexander Professor of Church History in the 
Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America, at Princeton, New Jersey, who 
delivered the following address: — 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : You do not need to hear from 
me that the receipt of your invitation to assist at the dedication of this 
impressive and appropriate approach to the new Harrisburg bridge gave me 
a great deal of pleasure. I always have great happiness in visiting Harris- 
burg, in coming back to my home, the home of so many of my people for 
six generations. Nor is the happiness diminished in this instance by the duty 
you have devolved on me of making a brief address. For I am confident that 
however ill-organized the address shall prove to be, it will not be ill-received 
by old friends. Moreover, I am sure that, in circumstances like those which 
make up the present occasion, you will not expect me to speak in any but a 
free and unstudied way. 

I have been compelled to live away from Harrisburg for more years than 
I like to confess. It is true that the pain of exile has been tempered by 
many things ; among others by the fact that I have had the good fortune 
always to live in a place celebrated for its beauty, or for the beauty of its 
situation. But returning to Harrisburg whenever I have been able to do so, 
I have never walked along the river's bank without feeling that I was in the 
presence of a scene whose beauty is exceptional and eminent, and without 
congratulating myself that my childhood and youth were spent in a region 
" suffused and saturated with this element." And the picture made by the 
opening valley, the islands, the swelling hills, the higher mountains and the 
flowing and shining river, has been so impressed upon me that, absent from 
it as I have been for the most of my life, I have easily called it before me. And 
as often as I have done so it has been a refreshment and solace ; like the 

19 



I^roceetitngg at tfje I^ebtcatton of tfje Market Street 

daffodils of Wordsworth's lyric to the poet whenever they flashed " upon 
that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude." 

But, after all, it is its human associations which give to the scene, as well 
as to the image of it the memory retains, its consummate charm. Indeed, I 
am not sure that when attributing the element of beauty to a large and diver- 
sified natural object, like the scene that faces the city, we do not include some 
of the relations which man sustains to it. It is no doubt true that natural 
objects by themselves and utterly apart from their human relations are capa- 
ble, by their mere impact upon the senses, of producing painful or pleasurable 
reactions. There is a physiological connection between any striking scheme 
of form and color on the one hand and the nervous system on the other, 
which expresses itself in feelings of pleasure or pain ; and in this connection, 
doubtless, is to be found the physical basis of the esthetic judgment and its 
related feeling. 

But to build a theory of esthetics on these mere physical reactions would 
be crass animalism indeed. The complex relations of nature to man, at once 
the crown of nature and its priest and king, and to man's complex life, play a 
larger part subconsciously than sometimes we are disposed to think, not only 
in our enjoyment but even in our judgment of objects of beauty or even sub- 
limity. The greatest of modern philosophers, I think, was Immanuel Kant. 
And Kant, in unfolding the human judgment of the firmament by night as the 
palmary instance of the material sublime, points out the fact that the associa- 
tion of ourselves with the distant stars is an essential element both of the 
affirmation and the feeling of the firmament's sublimity. For, to quote his 
words, the starry Heaven "departs from the place I occupy in the outer 
world of sense, expands, beyond the bounds of imagination, this connection 
of myself with worlds lying beyond worlds and systems blended into systems, 
and protends myself also into the illimitable times of their periodic move- 
ment." Now if Kant is right in teaching that, before completing in ourselves 
the idea and the feeling of the sublime, we connect the object which awakens 
both the idea and feeling with ourselves as human, then, I think, we are 
justified in saying of a large and complex scene of natural beauty, like the 
one in whose constant presence you are so fortunate as to live, so rich in 
the variety of its charm, so inviting in all its changes and aspects, so 
unified by the coordination of its elements, and so moulded to the needs and 
uses of man, — I think we are justified in saying of such a scene, that, at 
least, we do not rise to an adequate appreciation of its beauty and are not 
thrilled by the emotion which the beauty awakens, until we associate its 
physical features with that human life of which from the beginning it was 
designed to be the theater and the instrument. 

It is just in this association of the life of your city with the scene in the 

20 



Entrance to tfje Cttp of ^arrtsburg, Pennfiplbanta 

presence of which we are gathered, that the significance of the monumental 
approach we have met to dedicate is to be found. For is it not true that two, 
at least, of the most striking features of the life of Harrisburg, the feature 
which has given it its greatest distinction and the feature which has con- 
tributed most abundantly to its material prosperity, are symbolized before us ? 
The prime distinction of the city is, that for more than ninety years it has 
been the seat of the Commonwealth's civil government, and this you com- 
memorate in the stately columns which aided in forming the porch of its 
Capitol. And what has so largely contributed to the city's development as 
that great system of constructed highways — the bridges with their connecting 
roads, the canal and the network of railways which displaced the inadequate 
natural avenues of communication like the river and its ferry — of which con- 
structed highways, the first in time, was the bridge of which this new avenue 
across the river is the successor ? 

It is thus a large and deeply interesting theme which the occasion that has 
brought us together suggests and which, if you had only secured an orator 
equal to its treatment, might well have engaged your attention. I mean 
the progressive development of these great highways under the protection 
and encouragement of the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, I have neither 
the ability nor the special knowledge needed for its unfolding. I must set it 
aside for another to which I am more nearly equal. But I cannot abandon 
it before at least expressing the hope that this monumental approach will 
always convey the final aspect of the truth it so finely symbolizes : that after 
all, the end, the final cause of the united efforts of men to conquer nature, to 
modify it and subdue it to their use is to destroy solitude, to bring men to- 
gether, to establish and increase the city life — the society in which the mem- 
bers of the race shall dwell together in harmony as brethren. This, after all, 
is the ultimate significance alike of the association of men in political govern- 
ments, and of the flinging of bridges across the isolating and separating rivers. 
Not only does Aristotle, in his great treatise on politics, point out that the 
ultimate explanation of the founding of political governments is "that man 
is an animal naturally formed for society, and that therefore even when he 
does not want any foreign assistance he will equally desire to live with others," 
but the same truth is strikingly taught in the Christian scriptures. It is true, 
indeed, that the primeval life of happiness as there presented is that not of the 
city but of the garden ; and it is also true, that after the great catastrophe 
the city life was forbidden. Yet the idea of the city and of social life is ever 
the ideal of scattered man subduing the earth in the isolation of country life. 
And this ideal is justified in the visions of the Hebrew prophets and the 
great Christian seer. Zion, the City of God, takes the place of Eden the 
Garden of the Lord in Hebrew prediction ; and in order that the glory of 

21 



Proceebtngsf at tfje ^eoicattcm of tfje Market street 

Jehovah may be so revealed that all men shall see it together, a highway is to 
be made, the valleys are to be exalted by the labors of men, and the hills are 
to be brought low, and the crooked made straight, and the rough places 
plain. And in the last book of the Bible, the picture of the consummate state 
of man on earth is that of dwellers in the city, is that of a perfect society in 
the city whose length and breadth and height are equal, and whose highest 
distinction is that therein dwelleth righteousness. This, if we could only 
realize it, is the final cause, the pre-destined end of all human association, by 
which government is organized and highways are built and nature is modi- 
fied and isolation is destroyed. 

But appropriate as reflections like these may be, we may better turn our 
thoughts to a subject more special. For it is not the bridge as a bridge, but 
as the first bridge of Harrisburg that we are thinking of today. And Harris- 
burg, its beginning and early development, and above all its first people, con- 
stitute for me, and I am sure for you, a theme of never-failing interest. And 
where better can we talk of our ancestors than here on the bank of our 
river, just at the point where the bridge and the town meet, with the im- 
memorial hills about us, in the middle of the valley which the river parts in 
two, in plain view of the sites of their dwellings, and with the Susquehanna 
below us moving with gentle and stately flow on its winding course to the 
bay and the embracing ocean? Here, certainly, I may speak of our town's 
earlier people. 

It is now within a decade of two centuries that the first settler made for 
himself a home on the Susquehanna, not far from the spot on which we are 
gathered ; having moved from Philadelphia, where he had married one who, 
like himself, was a native of Yorkshire. "John Harris lived for a brief period 
at a point above Columbia, where the village of Bainbridge now stands ; but 
was not satisfied with the location. Exploring upwards along the eastern 
bank of the Susquehanna, he advanced until he found the entrance opposite 
him of the great valley with two fine streams flowing into the river about 
five miles apart, and on the eastern side an elevated plateau with the little 
Paxtang pouring itself into the river at its southern edge." We can hardly 
suppose him to have known in its larger relations the place he chose for his 
home and trading point. He could not, of course, have been aware of the 
great stretch of the Cumberland valley to the Potomac and of its extension 
beyond that river through Virginia ; that eastward the same valley crossed 
the Schuylkill, the Delaware, the Hudson, and even the Connecticut; and 
that besides being the richest tract within the ranges of the Appalachian 
Mountains was the natural avenue between the Northeastern and Southwestern 
country owned or claimed by Great Britain. In all that valley not less than a 
thousand miles in length, it has been said by one who knew it all, John Harris 

22 



Entrance to tfje Cttp of iifarrtstourg, Pennsylvania 

"chose the point of greatest beauty, the spot where it is cloven by the Sus- 
quehanna." It would be interesting to follow the fortunes of the first John 
Harris, who, in his dealings with the red Indians, "did justice and loved mercy." 
But today we are properly more deeply interested in those who followed 
him to the neighborhood and gave its distinctive character to the town after- 
wards founded by his son and namesake. 

Not many English settlers followed the English John Harris to the region. 
They made their homes nearer to Philadelphia. But not many years after this 
settlement, just about the close of the first quarter of the eighteenth century, 
two streams of immigrants began to flow into the country around his home. 
One of these was German, originating largely in the Rhenish Palatinate. The 
other was Scottish, from the province of Ulster in Ireland. Some years since, 
in speaking at the Centennial celebration of the First Presbyterian Church, I 
had occasion to point out, in the names of well-known Harrisburg families, 
the union of these two streams. " So," — if I may repeat what I then said, — 
" So are united the Scotch Weir and the German Wiestling, so Beatty and 
Egle ; so Kerr and Orth ; so Kunkel and Rutherford ; so Ross and Halde- 
man ; so Haldeman and Cameron ; so Gross and Criswell ; so Fahnestock 
and McKinley," and, to refer to a union of special interest in connection 
with our gathering today, so Buehler and McCormick. 

I am not insensible to the greatness of the other early migrations from 
Europe to America, or to their enrichment of our civilization ; the English- 
man of New England and the Englishman of Maryland and Virginia, the 
Hollander of New Netherlands and the Huguenot who was so closely allied 
with him. But I am sure that the ultimate judgment of the historian will be, 
that the German and Ulster migrations have each bestowed upon the nation 
benefits as large, as various, and certainly as widespread, as those bestowed 
by any migration to this country. It is well for us, today, to refresh our 
knowledge of these, the two elements of Harrisburg's earliest population. 
But before doing so, let us not fail to remember gratefully the proprietor of 
the Province, who in virtue of his constitution, "the Holy Experiment," 
became the founder of the Commonwealth and welcomed alike the Palatine 
and the Irish Scot, and made his province theirs. All of us have our ethical 
limitations, and no doubt William Penn had his. If Lord Macaulay is to 
be believed, they were serious enough. Yet I do not know where to look for 
an example, among the founders of states, of greater magnanimity or wiser 
foresight in his dealings with the people. To the Province of Pennsylvania 
the Germans and the Ulster men came in great numbers and with high hopes. 
Speaking broadly, they came about the same time and spread themselves 
through the valley and throughout the region south and east of us. This 
was one of the points at which the two met and mingled. 

23 



Proceeding* at tfje j^ebtcatton of tfje Market street 



Of these two classes of early settlers, the Germans were in number the 
greater. They represented a larger district of Europe and a greater variety 
of religious belief. We Pennsylvanians are to be congratulated that the early 
history in our State of its German settlers has, at last, been the subject of 
serious study. We had hoped to be honored by the presence of one such 
student in His Excellency the Governor of the Commonwealth ; and only a 
week ago, I had the satisfaction, as editor of "The Princeton Review," of 
accepting for its pages, a deeply interesting article by a Pennsylvanian, 
himself not a German, on "The Influence of German Thought and Literature 
in the United States during the Colonial Period." I wish that time permitted 
me to dwell on this subject as it deserves. All that I can do is to bring 
before you the character of this element of our population in its outstanding 
features. And here, rather than employ my own words, I shall use those 
of a Harrisburger in whose veins ran no German blood, yet a scholar and 
lover of German literature ; words written forty-four years ago. These 
words of Dr. Benjamin Wallace may well be read on the bank of the 
river he loved so well. "One would think," he wrote, "the German 
character might by this time be understood, and yet it is plain that it is 
not ; for when it is attempted either to eulogize or censure, men frequently 
shoot wide of the mark. The German character, to be understood, must 
be studied in the structure of its language ; in its literature as developed 
in its original seats ; in its manifestations in Europe among crowned 
kings, skilful diplomatists, profound scholars, eminent statesmen, imagina- 
tive authors. It must be studied in Luther's Bible, in Gesenius' Lexicon, in 
Schiller's Wallenstein, in Herder, and Goethe, in Tholuck, in Arndt, in 
Spener, in Kant and Schelling. You must go to the printing room of 
Gutenberg ; to the cell where Luther prayed to God ; to the study of Lessing ; 
to the common schools of Prussia and Saxony. And now, these are the same 
people that cover the valleys of our State, and bring from the bosom of the 
earth its exuberant fertility ; the same people, with the same untiring perse- 
verance ; the same steadfast devotion to an object ; the same household quiet- 
ness that breathes from every page of German song; the same love of music 
and of flowers ; the same attachment to order ; the same aversion to unquiet 
change; the same love of abstract thought; the same weird imagination. 
Doubt it not, the deeper elements of the unextinguishable Teutonic character 
will develop themselves here. And here will be a new union of the peculiar 
Anglo-Saxonism of England with that original stream from which it came in 
the Fatherland. It is not," he continues, "until we have been absent from 
Pennsylvania, till we have known other characters and mingled with other 
men, that we are prepared to appreciate the solidity, the steadiness, the hon- 
esty, the trustworthiness which live in the heart of our German people." 

2 4 



Entrance to tfje Cttp of ^arrisfturg, Pennspluama 

These are the racial traits which the German from the beginning brought to 
enrich the life of our town. 

The other element was the Scottish immigrants from the North of 
Ireland. They migrated to Ireland from the lowlands of Scotland, and 
were therefore as Teutonic in blood as the people of South Britain. They 
were encouraged to move to Ireland by James VI, who desired to plant in 
Ulster a people whom the vigorous Irish Celt could not absorb as he had 
absorbed both the Norman and the English of the Pale. Some of their earlier 
traits these Scottish people lost in their first migration, as the gift of poetry. 
But their intense patriotism, their devotion to their form of Christianity, their 
independence and courage in asserting their civil rights, their quick perception, 
their acuteness in dialectic, their polemic spirit shown alike in the forum, in 
theological debate and in battle, and their capacity for enthusiasm — the per- 
fervldum ingeniutn Scotorum — which carried them undaunted through a suc- 
cession of conflicts with kings and nobles ; these they brought from Scotland 
to Ireland, and from Ireland to Pennsylvania. They pushed forward to the 
frontiers. They contested with fierce vigor the Indians' alleged rights to hold 
arable lands as hunting grounds. They were by eminence the pioneers, who 
by their struggles made peaceful settlements a possibility ; and they had the 
gift of political construction. If they were not so rich in sentiment or so 
variously endowed in intellect as the German, yet from the first they had 
their powers well in hand ; they developed earlier in the new conditions ; 
and they were ready always to employ their powers both in battle and in con- 
structive work, for God, for the Church, for civil rights, for the school and 
the home. 

These were the two great elements of the early population of the country 
of which your city became the center, and no richer or better elements could 
they have been. Nor, as I read the early history of the region, could the union 
have been more real. How well and how unitedly they met the crises of the 
settlements as they arose ! How brave and determined in their conflicts with 
the Indian! How loyal to the mother country in the French war! And, 
when the war of Independence began, and the question of revolt had to be 
answered, there was no division. The sentiment of the settlement was 
unanimous. It was for the Colonies. And it proved itself to be deep and 
stern conviction on many a battlefield of the war. 

Organized of elements so admirable, the town began its corporate life in 
1785. Its growth at the beginning was not a rapid one. But its life was 
healthy and its homes were abodes of comfort. I think it a great thing to 
say of the place, that the earliest institutions established here by associated 
activity were the churches ; and that next to them came into being the Harris- 
burg Academy. We can confidently prophesy great things for a people 

25 



Proceeding* at tfje Pebicatton of tije Market Street 

whose first cares and united labors are in the interest of religion and edu- 
cation. From these they proceeded to the organization of the bank ; and con- 
temporary with the bank was the beginning of the construction of the bridge. 
When the bridge was built, the first of the artificial highways which have 
brought the town into easy communication with the world was completed. 
And so began that career of prosperity which still continues, and which is so 
full of promise for the coming years. 

It would be interesting to dwell on the enrichment and enlargement of the 
life of the town wrought by the building of the bridge. It increased its trade 
and brought strangers in larger numbers to its doors. Especially must it 
have made more intimate business and social exchanges between the town and 
the nearer settlements of the Cumberland Valley. I cannot dwell on this. 
But, remembering as we do the family to whose generosity and public spirit 
the city owes this memorial approach, and coming as I do from Princeton, it 
is singularly appropriate that I recall the fact that among those who crossed 
the bridge soon after its completion was a youth approaching manhood — 
James McCormick, of Silver's Spring — who passed over it to take the stage at 
Harrisburg (for then there was neither railway nor canal) on his long journey 
to Princeton College, where he studied and was graduated with honor in the 
class of 1822. Something in Harrisburg attracted him, for here he made his 
home and became one of the great lawyers of the Commonwealth — one of 
the ablest, as I have heard both Judge Black and Judge Pearson say — a great 
man of business also, developing the banking and industrial interests of the 
city. The only public office he held, among the many he might have filled, 
was a seat in the borough council. His public spirit and municipal patriotism 
have been inherited by his descendants ; and it is for me a great pleasure to 
join with you today in the hearty recognition of the great value of this spirit 
to the city, in many ways besides the construction of this memorial approach. 

A native of Harrisburg, returning to the city, sees with delight the natural 
features which do not change and which are endeared to him by the most 
sacred associations. But his pride in the place is stimulated, as he sees the 
town transfigured. He rejoices with you in the civic spirit now so finely 
organized and so admirably efficient, which, with fine intelligence, is using 
the beauty of its situation and its office as the seat of government to make it 
still more worthy of its great function as the capital of the great Common- 
wealth. There are many motives which must unite to awaken enthusiasm 
and secure persistence in this good work. There is one which ought always 
to be strong in its force and distinct in consciousness. In the great speech of 
Pericles, commemorating the dead who first fell in the Peloponnesian war, 
the orator, who himself did so much to secure the adornment of Athens, 
pronounces a eulogy on the founders of the city, the ancestors of those whom 

26 



Entrance to tfje Cttp of i^arrteimrg, Pennsplbama 

he addressed. In their characters and careers, he found one of the strongest 
and highest motives to his own beneficent activity. And I am sure that, 
among the motives which should determine you to continue and complete the 
adornment of Harrisburg, there is none higher or more sacred than your own 
appreciation of the noble racial qualities, the moral virtues, the piety, the 
intelligence and the wisdom of your ancestors and predecessors, who first 
gave character to this settlement on the Susquehanna. 

At the conclusion of the address, "America" was sung, 
and the benediction was pronounced by the Right Reverend 
James Henry Darlington, Ph.D., D.D., LL.D., Bishop of 

Harrisburg : 

Now the GOD of peace, that brought again from the dead our LORD 
JESUS, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlast- 
ing covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working 
in you that which is well pleasing in His sight ; through JESUS CHRIST, 
to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 




CORNER-STONE OF THE OLD BRIDGE, NOW BUILT INTO THE WALL 
OF THE NEW TOLLHOUSE 



2 7 



JG 9 1906 



